Automating the Detection of Dynamically Triggered Earthquakes via a Deep Metric Learning Algorithm

Detecting subtle signals from small earthquakes triggered by transient stresses from the surface waves of large magnitude earthquakes can contribute to a more general understanding of how earthquakes nucleate and interact with each other. However, searching for signals from such small earthquakes in thousands of seismograms is over-whelming, and discriminating them from a miscellany of noise is challenging. Here, we explore how we can automate the detection of such dynamically triggered earthquakes using a simple, diagnostic signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) threshold as well as a convolutional deep metric learning network. Our analysis shows that the deep learning network was more reliable at detecting small earthquakes than the SNR method.